AP Interview: Iran opposition chief sees rebirth

AP Interview: Iran opposition chief sees rebirth

September 29th, 2012by Associated Press in Local - Breaking News

In this Jan. 25, 2011 file photo, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of Iranian opposition party National Council of Resistance of Iran, smiles as she attends an international conference on Iran policy in Brussels. Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in an interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government, Friday, Sept. 28, 2012.

Photo by
Associated Press
/Times Free Press.

AUVERS-SUR-OISE, France - The leader of an Iranian militant group that was taken off the U.S. terror list on Friday says the move will change her group's "balance of power" with the world - predicting a higher profile in politics, fundraising and diplomacy as well as increased anti-regime activity in Iran.

The U.S. State Department said the People's Mujahedeen of Iran (MEK) hasn't committed terror for more than a decade. The decision means that effective immediately, any assets the group has in the United States are unblocked and Americans are permitted to do business with the organization.

Maryam Rajavi, the Paris-based head of the exiled opposition group, said in a rare interview that she hopes the organization can now have the ear of the world's diplomats to help bolster its bid to overthrow Iran's clerical regime. She stressed that its goal was to replace the Islamic Republic with a democratic government.

Rajavi praised the "courage" of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for what MEK believes was a long overdue decision. A court order had given Clinton until Oct. 1 to act. The group was removed from the European Union's terrorist list in 2009.

"It now has become evident for everyone that these (terror) allegations were untrue," she said. "This is a movement for freedom and democracy in Iran."

The Iranian regime is likely to be furious at the U.S. decision to delist MEK - for years the only armed exile opposition group. The group, which began as a guerrilla movement fighting Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, helped overthrow the monarch in 1979 then quickly fell out with the Islamic Republic's first leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

MEK later teamed up with Iraq to battle Iran in an eight-year war in the 1980s, then from its Iraqi base continued military action against neighboring Iran.

A senior State Department official said Washington does not view the group as an opposition movement that can promote democratic values in Iran. The official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

"They are not part of our picture in terms of the future of Iran," the official said.

Still, the U.S. credited the group's 3,000-plus members at a paramilitary base near Iraq's border with Iran with a peaceful departure to another camp, a major step in their eventual departure from Iraq.

The United States contends the group was responsible for the killing of several American military officials and defense contractors in the 1970s, carrying out attacks on Iran from its base in Iraq.

Rajavi, 58, wore what has become a trademark headscarf among MEK women during the interview Friday at MEK's headquarters in the leafy town of Auvers-Sur-Oise north of Paris. She denied claims by critics that MEK has all the earmarks of a cult, blaming Iran for such allegations.

"All the energy and potential of our movement were chained" during the 15 years that MEK was listed by the United States as a terrorist organization, she said, speaking in French as well as the Iranian language of Farsi through a translator.

At its headquarters, the group was preparing for a jubilant fete on Saturday, plastering walls on the street with red drapes and photographs of "martyrs," as it refers to members who have been killed.

"The diplomatic scene will be completely different" because the group's status as a pariah will evaporate, Rajavi said, reiterating MEK's long-standing denial of terrorism.

But, she said, "the most important impact ... will be seen inside Iran."

"The balance of power, the balance of power is going to change. For example, the first message for the Iranian people will be they won't fear increasing their activity and increasing their demonstrations," she said. The fear "will evaporate ... and that will lead to the expansion of anti-regime activities within Iran."

With a clean bill of health in the West, the Iranian regime "will no longer have the excuse" of acting against an organization deemed terrorist by the United States.

Mujahedeen, protected in Iraq under dictator Saddam Hussein, were disarmed after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and are disliked by the new Iraqi government, dominated by Shiite Muslims like those in Iran.

The United States had insisted the MEK's members leave Camp Ashraf, their home in Iraq, as a condition for removal from the terrorist list. All but several hundred militants are now located in Camp Liberty, a former U.S. base outside Baghdad, looking for placement in third countries.

Among those transferred to Camp Liberty were Rajavi's 30-year-old daughter and her 32-year-old son, she said.

A veil of mystery has long surrounded the group, not the least over the whereabouts of its main founder, Massoud Rajavi, who married Maryam and, though not seen since at least 2003, continues as its co-leader.

There has been speculation that he is dead. Rajavi said Friday he is alive but would not say where he is living.